Arriving in China - Home Stanky Home

The drive from Yantai airport to the town of Penglai took an hour and it was mostly on highways with little traffic. We couldn’t see too much of the landscape due to the fog/haze. We could make out a mountain in the distance and a few wind farms. It was mainly rural with lots of farmland, mostly apple orchards.

Even though there was minor traffic, we were quickly re-acquainted with the no rules driving of Asian drivers. They rarely stayed in their lane (I mean, why stay in one lane when I can just take up two?). They had no problems passing one another via the shoulder or across the centerline (you know the solid one that indicates NO passing allowed in the opposite lane). The speed limit was completely ignored. And if you thought the purpose of a horn was to warn your fellow drivers of imminent danger, you thought wrong. No, as a rule of thumb the horn is used when the driver is inconvenienced or the driver is in the process of inconveniencing others. If someone slows down in front of you for any reason, you honk your horn. If someone indicates to turn and they happen to be in front of you, you honk your horn as you pass them. If you are in the opposite lane of traffic trying to pass a slower vehicle and another car is coming head-on towards you, you honk your horn to tell them to get the heck out of your way. Although we had experienced such antics before (from our 3 years in Thailand and various travels across the continent), living in Australia with its strict driving rules had spoiled us. I’ll be sure to dedicate an entire blog post on the crazy driving habits in China.

Our apartment building viewed from the main street

Alive and in one piece, we finally arrived in the town of Penglai. Penglai is a town and subdivision of the city of Yantai. The city of Yantai contain 6.5 million people while the town of Penglai has about 20,000. Penglai is one of China's oldest military ports, built in 1376 under the Ming dynasty. It is known as a local tourist destination due to the beaches, the new wine-growing region, and the government supported attractions (rebuilt temples, palaces, and other historical sites). It is widely known for its seaside mirages in the spring - a reflection of the city can sometimes be seen over the ocean due to rare atmospheric conditions.

We turned off the main road down some back-alley and were dropped off at the Wanghailou Hotel. The 20-story building looked old, plain, and in need of a face-lift – but then again all the buildings we’d seen so far during our drive fit this description. We entered the small, unlit lobby and were greeted by the receptionist, a young woman who spoke excellent English. She took us to the dimly lit hallway where the elevators were located. It smelled of urine. And dead fish. Nice. We took the elevator to the 17th floor and the receptionist told us that we could choose between 2 rooms. We really didn’t know what to expect upon entering the first room, but we were optimistic as it was the apartment where all of the expats on Amber’s project were living. We certainly weren’t prepared for what we saw next.

The entrance to our apartment building

When we entered the room we stepped into a very large living room that had a lovely 3-piece sofa set taken straight for the 1980’s. There was also a small 5-piece dining table, a glass-topped coffee table, a small entertainment center with a bulky 1990s TV sitting on top, all laid out in a weird, not very functional, arrangement.

The living room and balcony

The walls were off-white in color, dirty, and chunks of it were missing in some areas. We looked into each of the 4 bedrooms and each had a nightstand, TV stand with bulky TV, and a double bed or two single beds. In 3 of the rooms the bed took up 80% of the bedroom leaving very little room to even walk, let alone store things.

Bedroom with hole in the wall

One of the rooms had a hole in the wall, as if it were punched. The 4^th bedroom was bigger than the rest, presumably the master bedroom, but, oddly, it had two single beds instead of a double bed. All of the wallpaper seams could be seen or were peeling, and behind the TV the wallpaper was black with what looked to be water stains.

Peeling wallpaper in the master bedroom

Stained wallpaper and/or no wall behind the wallpaper

The apartment room contained two separate quite large, glass-enclosed balconies with decent views of the city and the ocean. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the ocean that was literally 3 blocks away because the smog was so thick.

The two bathrooms each had a shower, cracked toilet, and sink. The old fixtures and open plumbing of the sinks were very unattractive to say the least. Curiously, the shower in the 2nd bathroom contained a washing machine. We later realized that we couldn't move the washing machine and use it elsewhere because the connections for it (the water tap and drain) were constructed in the shower. 

The lovely bathroom plumbing

A nice 'open' layout (no shower door or floor divider)

The washing machine sitting in the shower of the 2nd bathroom

The kitchen was fairly small and contained a proper 2-burner gas stove top, a small 2-bowl sink, a dish rack with dishes, and a combination rice-cooker and steamer. Noticeably missing were a refrigerator, oven, and microwave.

At least we were provided with quintessential Asian cookware - a wok and a butcher's knife

The other side of the kitchen included drawers, cabinets, a wall heater, the water heater, and the gas meter.

As we made our way through the apartment I noticed that Amber was brewing inside, like a teapot. Reliving my days as a real estate agent, I did my best to comment on the few positive features, and downplay the negative qualities of the room. The receptionist seemed very proud of the room, re-iterating the size of the space, the number of bedrooms, and the great view. We left the room and went across the hall to inspect the other room. It was quite similar in design and features. The main difference was that the living room had a better layout, there were only 3 bedrooms, and it only had 1 balcony, which wasn’t facing the ocean. Amber opted for the apartment with the better layout, but I opted for the one with more space as I knew we would need it to hold all of our belongings. The receptionist was quit puzzled that we were even considering taking the smaller room, but seemed pleased when we decided on the larger apartment. She handed us our room keys and left us to unpack.

It was then that we were struck with the reality that living in China wouldn’t be another amazing notch to add to our expat exploits. I was happy and relieved that we had finally made it to China. After 4 months of processing and paperwork and unknowns, plus extended hotel living leading up to the big relocation, we could finally get back to a normal living situation and begin to acclimate ourselves to a new culture. Amber, on the other hand, was unimpressed with the drive to Penglai, she was unimpressed with what she saw of Penglai so far, and she was completely disgusted at the ‘dump’ that would be ‘home sweet home’ for the foreseeable future. Or, as we have affectionately come to call our dismal surroundings, “home stanky home”, courtesy of the declaration that Amber’s coworker announces as they approach the apartment's parking lot every single day.

After unpacking a little, decompressing, and coming to grips with reality, we decided that a couple things had to get done by the end of the day – get our cell phones working and buy some sort of mattress support to make the rock-hard bed sleepable. We re-assured each other that everything was going to be okay (mostly me comforting Amber). And then we made our way to the streets of Penglai.

Click here to read the previous post, Destination China - 2nd Leg

Destination China - 2nd Leg

The flight to Singapore was 7 hours and it seemed to go by quickly. I spent most of the time watching movies, which included, “The Hunger Games”, “Prometheus”, and “Red Dog”.

A cute, Australian film based on the true story of an Outback dog

We arrived in Singapore at about 6pm and had to wait until 10:30pm for our flight to Beijing. My plan was to take the Singapore subway to the city and enjoy a dinner, but we had a baggage snafu that required us to be in the terminal during the entire layover. It turns out we should’ve paid for the overweight baggage back in Brisbane and we’d have to pay the fees again during our connection in Beijing. Kudos to the Singapore airport transfer desk for helping us out and saving us a lot of money on luggage transfer costs by re-booking our final flight from Beijing to Yantai on the same airline, Air China, that was taking us from Singapore to Beijing.

The red-eye Singapore-to-Beijing flight wasn’t full so we had plenty of space to sleep during the 6-hour flight. We arrived in Beijing at around 7am on Monday. We only had an hour and a half to get through immigration and customs to catch our next flight to Yantai.  The immigration line took about 20 minutes to get through, this time without incident, and, miraculously, our bags were the very first bags to come off the baggage carousel. Our good luck continued as we walked through customs without having our luggage checked.

Next, we had to figure out where our connecting flight was located. Our tickets were printed in Chinese so we couldn’t figure out what the explanation of the numbers meant. There was a “1” printed on both our tickets near the flight number and departure time, so I assumed this was the terminal number for the flight. We were in terminal 3 (formerly the largest terminal in the world), so we took the 20 minute transfer bus ride to terminal 1. We had 50 minutes to go when we arrived to terminal 1 – still enough time to check-in for a domestic flight. We walked around looking for an Air China check-in counter but we couldn’t see one. We checked the departure screen and there weren’t any Air China flights listed! Confused, we asked the information desk about our flight, and they told us that we had to go to terminal 3! Deflated, we went outside to wait for the next terminal transfer bus, but we know it would be another 10 minutes before the next one arrived.

Rather than wait for the next inter-terminal bus, we decided to take a taxi. A Chinese man kind of hanging out by the curb seemed to understand our concern and urgency. With a lit cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth he offered, in half Chinese and half broken-English, to get us to terminal 3. Violating one of the cardinal rules for travel overseas (not using a proper, accredited taxi service), we accepted his offer. For all we knew this guy was waiting at the terminal to pick up a family member and was taking advantage of a chance to make some money off of us to pass the time. We defied the laws of physics by cramming all four of our suitcases, our backpacks, and 3 people into his tiny car and sped off towards the correct terminal. The trunk was wide open with our bags precariously hanging out and held intact by a thin piece of string. The car was noticeably riding low in the back and the engine was working hard to keep up with the flow of traffic. During the trip, the driver was excitedly and constantly speaking to me in Chinese, laughing and slapping the dashboard to point out the unnatural angle the vehicle was driving in. He also said the word “policeman” several times in English, made police siren noises, and gestured that we’d have to pay money if we were pulled over. I nodded in agreement, laughed timidly, and just hoped we wouldn’t get pulled over. Next, he pointed at the passenger side mirror and, from what I gathered, commanded to me (in Mandarin) to keep a constant watch in the mirror. I wasn’t sure if he was telling me to watch for our falling luggage or to keep an eye out for the police. I kept a steady eye for both and, thankfully, neither caused us any problems as we approached terminal 3. Visibly pleased with himself, the driver happily helped us unload everything, accepted my payment (probably double what it should’ve been, but still only about $7USD), and waved us farewell and “Bye-Bye.”

Beijing Airport terminal 3 - built for the 2008 Olympics, it was the largest terminal in the world until the Dubai Airport terminal 3 surpassed it 

We looked at the departure screen for terminal 3 and saw that we only had 15 minutes until the flight was to depart.  We knew we were going to miss the flight and our only hope was that we could get on a later flight to Yantai. When we got to the Air China check-in desk, we were informed that our flight was delayed for 2 hours. What a relief! We were going to make it! We checked our bags, passed through security and enjoyed breakfast at one of the few restaurants available – KFC. Much to our delight the sausage breakfast sandwich tasted like a sausage sandwich from the US (not that weird Australian version of sausage). I also had a bubble tea (milk tea) to drink that had the yummy ‘pearls’ in the bottom.

The flight from Beijing to Yantai only took an hour. It was getting apparent that we were moving further away from Westernized China and venturing into the true, “rural” China. All the other passengers were Chinese. All of the announcements were performed first in Mandarin and followed by extremely thick-accented (and sometimes unrecognizable) English. In-flight magazines didn’t have any English in them. And last but not least, the in-flight snack was noodles with sauce, a bun, and a boiled egg.

We gathered our luggage at the baggage carousel in Yantai and looked around the tiny terminal for a person holding a sign with our name on it. The company-appointed driver was nowhere to be seen. We had the phone number of the company travel liaison, but our cell phones didn’t work and there weren’t any working payphones! Our only hope now was to use somebody’s cell phone to call the liaison. I approached the information desk and asked the lady if I could use the phone. Her puzzled looked told me that she didn’t speak any English. I made the international gesture of using a cell phone (thumb and pinky extended, held to my ear and mouth) and pointed to our liaison’s phone number on our printout. She understood my gesture, pulled out her personal cell phone and called the liaison. After a brief conversation, she gestured for us to wait – wait for what and for how long, we weren’t sure. So we waited. Five minutes later a man on his phone bustled up to the information desk holding a piece of paper with our names on it. We found our driver! After waving our appreciation to the lady at the desk, we gathered our bags, trudged out to the parking lot, and shoved our bags and tired bodies into the mini-van. We had finally arrived and settled in for the final stretch of our journey to Penglai.

Click here to read the next post, "Destination China - Home Stanky Home" 

Click here to read the previous post, "Destination China - First Leg"